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Threads through Sheffield - Circus School

Part 2 Project 2008
Paul Bower
 University of Sheffield | UK
Where coal, steel and stripping South Yorkshire men once formed the 'landscape' and forged the socio-political, economical and cultural threads that ran through Sheffield and beyond, the world of Circus is explored to re-address the often clichéd and all too hasty urban response to dealing with the post-industrial condition.

The project is imagined in the evacuated fields and left-overs of industrial glories past and present. A projected timeline from 10 minutes to 100 years provides a thread along which the scenario plays out. A performance venue, circus school, funfair archive and event meadows assist in the continual mutation of site. Set in the foothills of the majestic, albeit ill-fated, Tinsley Cooling Towers the project utilises circus knowledge along with local expertise and material to help regenerate this former Power Station.

Sheffield has had its 'fingers' burnt once before by the relentless visions of Modernism, therefore it takes a certain romance to be made in Sheffield and it starts by smelling the roses...



Paul Bower’s project for a Circus School at Meadowhall, proposes a new and invigorating alternative to a defunct industrial site, anxious about its ‘landmark’ towers and prone to flooding. Working alongside the existing conditions of a much maligned shopping centre, sewage works and transport interchange the project for a Circus School provides both a strategic and playful occupation of the site and its terminally decaying fabric both ahead of and instead of its planned comprehensive redevelopment. The Circus School project takes inspiration from both the traditional circus that once travelled by train and the current European rail network as a way of making the contemporary UK circus both mobile and sustainable. It proposes to connect existing disjointed schools and circuses via an interdependent European rail network accessed from this transport hub, but also aims to provide a permanent base for performance, display, training and education. This project draws on an acute awareness of the complex threads of interconnection between people, things and systems, while building on an intimate and local knowledge of Sheffield. By seeking to understand the peculiarities of this found space at Meadowhall, it attempts to make the most of an overlooked and neglected territory, without negating its character. The approach to circus construction does not simply rest on an ad-hoc temporary aesthetic. Its careful and intricate re-use of the most basic and large scale industrial materials and structures sourced from the site- telegraph poles, railway sleepers, pylons and cooling towers- creates the possibility for a performative and changing architecture, that can be both fleet-footed and robust. The architectural responses to the seasonality of the site and its occupation, the transient and episodic nature of performances and the history of entertainment and industry in Sheffield is nuanced, composed and energetic.
2008
A Thread Through Europe and Beyond - Exploring interdependence across Sheffield, Berlin and Warsaw. Connected by the European train network and Global wind patterns the cities were collectively mapped.
Transportation Thread - Redrawn Supertram plan to map moments of interdependence and heterotopia
Circus Table - Phillip Astley - (British creator of Modern Circus) - in Paris 1782. When banned by the authorities from producing any act not performed on a horse, he overcame the situation by performing his circus on a horse carried table top.
Thread Through Time -
First Marks - On site drawing with wood chips, Scale 1:1
The Outskirts - Beneath the viaduct the ring of roses flows under bringing potential performers, fragrant smells and natural higher levels of security from the Sheffield side into the hidden expectant meadows beyond.
The Meadows - Flood and Festival capabilities are fused together
Cooling Lamp Shades Formed in the troughs that once held the heated water emitted by the former power station, the illuminated path encircles the towers; lighting up during evening performance hours to announce its presence on the Sheffield night skyline.
Section through the Circus School's 'Bathtub' Training Hall - Placed on the boundary between the former powerstation and sewage works
Circus School Ground Floor Plan
Bathtub Training Hall - Built within the trench formed to protect the existing Sewage works from future floods; the circus school training hall sits in a stone gabion ‘bath tub’ structure capable of draining expectant flood water.
Caravans in the Sky - Shipping containers previously used to house the circus groups in the earlier years are re-organised and stacked to form the performer’s residential block, as well as providing additional work space and circus facilities.
The Performers Dressing Room - The reclaimed shipping container is internally clad with plywood and finished with minimal furnishings. The room provides a view back across to the cooling tower performance venue and the Tinsley Viaduct.
Archive - This consists of several “curious cabinets” that are capable of moving in and out of the dividing wall between the study and store area. The collection is live so will carry on growing over time and the architecture is responsive to this.
Provisional Mo[nu]ments - Are circuses a provisional monument to cities on the move (i.e. changing cities) and if so, how do their provisional moments affect the urban environment?
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